Last night, Donald Trump offered a grudging apology (after earlier offering a non-apology) for lewd remarks in which he seemed to be boasting about routine sexual assault. But he isn’t sorry and everyone knows it. As best one can tell, Trump has never been genuinely sorry for anything. His half-hearted apology to the women of America is worthless, and if he offers another apology it will be equally worthless.* The people who ought to apologize — the people who really might be sorry and ought to speak up if they are — are the several hundred Republican Party leaders who saw this disaster unfold over the past twelve months, were clearly somewhat uncomfortable with it, and who chose to convince themselves and their fellow partisans that it was all okay rather than to lean in and fight Trump.

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... what Republican Party leaders — from formal party leaders like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to lesser elected officials and quasi-party people like the Chamber of Commerce — should be learning this weekend is that they were wrong.

Not that Trump made a mistake and he needs to apologize, but that they made a mistake and need to apologize. The evidence was there, in spades, all along for anyone who wanted to see. But partisan and ideological incentives made them not want to see. The audio is vivid and stark and cuts through that fog of wishful thinking and self-deception. The people whose eyes its opened shouldn’t be demanding apologies from Trump, they should be offering apologies for their role in letting him get much closer to the White House than he ever should have.